I2303 — A release publishes its metadata to the site before its record lands, and the site never goes back a release

✓DONE wave 0 · p0 · implementation profile · parallel safe

Part of test-evidence — Every verifiable claim and widget resolves to revision-bound test evidence, on every surface.

Objective

Make majordomus.dev serve a release's releases/latest.json and releases/<tag>.json from the release run itself, minutes after its archives are published, instead of after its record's pull request has passed its ci, without the site ever going back a release.

Why

On 2026-10-10 v0.20.0 was published on GitHub at 16:38Z and served by the site at 17:42Z, only after its record was merged by hand without waiting for ci; v0.19.1 was published at 01:46Z and served after 07:09Z, its record's ci running 106 minutes. The owner set a bound of 15 minutes from tag to served release and chose, asked the same day, that the release run publish its metadata itself before the record lands.

Current state

release.yml's publish job derives the record and its projections, proposes them as release/record-<tag>, and dispatches pages.yml on the default branch; the site serves the release only once the record's pull request is merged and master deployed. scripts/site-deploy replaces gh-pages with the build entirely.

Desired state

The publish job runs `scripts/site-deploy --release-metadata <tag>` after `scripts/derive-check` judged the tree: exactly releases/<tag>.json and releases/latest.json change on gh-pages, build.json still names master's commit. It refuses a missing or mismatched tag file, a latest.json that differs from it, and a release older than the one served. An ordinary deploy keeps gh-pages' latest.json and the tag file it names when they name a newer release than the build, and says so. ADR 0131 records the decision.

Scope

• scripts/site-deploy
• .github/workflows/release.yml
• docs/DISTRIBUTION.md
• .ai/repo/adrs/0131-a-release-publishes-its-metadata-before-its-record-lands.md
• .ai/repo/project/issues/I2303.yaml
• test/cases/1041_a_release_publishes_its_metadata.sh
• test/cases/87_release_pipeline.sh
• docs/generated
• docs/PLAN_STATUS.md
• docs/PAGES_STATUS.md
• site/content
• site/data

Out of scope

• Shortening the build and the publish job, which the 15-minute bound also needs: the macOS x86_64 package step, the second derivation and the rebuilt executable of the publish job.
• The staging line release.yml's publish step fails on since /dist/ is ignored: I2302.

Dependencies

None. This issue is a root of the graph.

Acceptance criteria

• `scripts/site-deploy --release-metadata <tag>` changes exactly releases/<tag>.json and releases/latest.json on gh-pages and leaves build.json naming master's commit, proven against a local bare remote
• It refuses, pushing nothing, a missing tag file, a latest.json naming another tag, a latest.json that differs from the tag file, and a release older than the one served
• An ordinary deploy of a build that names an older release keeps the served latest.json and its tag file and says so; a build naming the same or a newer release replaces them
• release.yml's publish job runs the mode after scripts/derive-check and before the record is proposed, and the smoke job waits for the served metadata rather than for the record to be on the default branch
• The case fails against the previous scripts/site-deploy, and against one without the keep rule

Validation

• bash test/run.sh 1041_a_release_publishes_its_metadata
• MJ_TEST_JOBS=3 bash test/run.sh 87_release_pipeline 26_ci_wiring 996_the_record_pull_request_gets_its_verdict
• bin/majordomus plan validate

Evidence required

• release_metadata_published_ahead_of_record_case
• decision_recorded

Evidence

Timeline

started

2026-10-14T08:00:25Z

verified

—

completed

2026-10-14T08:00:34Z

Those three fields, the evidence above and the state of the dependencies are all the status is made of. There is no status field to disagree with them.

Canonical record: .ai/repo/project/issues/I2303.yaml. Read it back with majordomus plan show I2303.